WESTFIELD — New England’s largest colleges reported about 40 percent more sexual assaults last year compared with 2012, an increase experts attribute to heightened awareness of the problem and to more victims coming forward.
Reports of “forcible sex offenses” climbed to 289 last year, up from 206 in 2012, according to a Boston Globe review of data that 29 colleges provided in annual federally mandated reports released last week. While complete data will not be available from the U.S. Department of Education until at least December, the Globe reached out to a select number of schools for updated numbers.
At all but four of the campuses in the review, the number of sexual assault reports rose or held steady last year.
“It means that students are coming forward and reporting crimes that are happening and ending that culture of silence,” said Alison Kiss, director of the Clery Center for Security On Campus, a nonprofit that trains colleges to comply with the federal Clery Act.
Under the act, colleges are required by October 1 each year to issue a report that includes statistics of allegations of crimes that occurred on campus, including dorms and other public property; at property owned by, but separated from, the main campus; and at fraternities and sororities.
Specialists also believe the spike in reporting may be because colleges are becoming more thorough and transparent in collecting and disclosing sexual assault data.
At Westfield State University, the number of sexual assaults have increased in small increments and an increase in alleged assaults is anticipated in coming years due to more awareness and training students are getting on what constitutes sexual assault.
“Sexual assault, sexual violence, dating violence, those are serious public health concerns and we need to be able to feel like we’re doing the most we possibly can to ensure the safety and respect of our campus environment,” said university spokesperson Molly Watson. “This year we had our students undergo HAVEN (Helping Advocates for Ending Violence Now) training and bystander intervention training.”
Watson added that 750 first year students recently attended a sex-signals workshop that reinforced the definition of sexual assault.
“Are there incidents on campus? Yes, but we’re taking steps to make sure everyone feels comfortable. We’re protecting the victim’s rights and making sure that survivors have the support that they need,” she said, adding that the university tracks crime statistics on a monthly basis, posting them to the campus crime log every 48 hours.
These monthly statistics are compiled in the university’s annual security report, which is posted to the school website.
“Our numbers are not what you’d see at a major school, but that’s probably in-line with what they’ve always been,” said Watson. “Kids are better educated now and people aren’t standing by and being silent about things they’re seeing on campus. Universities are doing more than they ever have before to stop sexual violence.”
While the Clery Act – signed into law in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush and named after Jeanne Clery, a 19-year old freshman who was raped and murdered in her campus residence hall at Lehigh University in 1986 – requires schools that receive federal funds to provide a report of all alleged sexual assaults that occur in their housing, situations that occur in student-rented off-campus housing still find their way to Westfield State University’s Police Department via the Westfield Police Department.
“They send us a weekly report of what happens downtown and it goes to multiple people on campus,” said Tony Casciano, director of public safety at Westfield State University.
“Back then, you didn’t really know what was going on on college campuses, so when the Clery Act went into effect… it was a good thing. Back then, there weren’t a lot of police departments. Now, most schools have professional departments on campus,” he said. “If you’re a parent, you’re able to go online and take a look at the crime stats for every college that receives federal funding.”
Casciano said that the school has a safe, well-lit campus and that public safety has emergency phones, operates shuttle bus services and that officers will transport students themselves if necessary.
The department also tries to teach students how to prevent assaults through courses such as Rape Aggression Defense (RAD), which are taught by university crime prevention officers.
“They fill up pretty quick, so we try to do one or two a semester,” said Casciano. “A lot of sexual assaults, they know the person, they are acquaintances and alcohol is a factor.”
Casciano was working at Lehigh as a crime prevention officer when Jeanne Clery was murdered and said the incident further instilled in him the importance of being proactive.
“I haven’t changed my philosophy,” he said. “But one of the things Clery has done – it made people say ‘let’s not react to a situation, let’s try not to let it happen.’ I’ve seen a lot of changes and they have been changes for the good.”
As far as what the response has been to these programs on campus, Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Carlton Pickron said students are becoming more comfortable speaking up, out and against sexual violence.
“The more eduction the students get, the more students come forward. So we’re getting more reporting of incidents,” he said. “750 students on Labor Day at the sex signals event, so I think the response we’re receiving is positive.”
“Only a couple of years ago, it was more hush-hush – unless it was something that was extremely violent – but now people are speaking up saying ‘this is not right, this isn’t the type of relationship I want to be in’ and people are being held accountable for it.”
Still early in the fall semester, Pickron said that so far, the school has received four reports of sexual assault, an increase from two at this time last year.
“Two of the ones that were reported were reported two weeks after it happened after (the victim) attended a training and said ‘hey, I want to tell someone about this,'” he said. “We know that sexual violence has been on campus since there have been campuses. This isn’t new – from Ivy League to military academies to public institutions, it doesn’t matter – and now people are better educated, stepping up and being heard.”
